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Screen changers research & test: Cofit starts CofitLab

Market demands answered by our lab

The company Cofit has recently adopted its own in-house department, specifically dedicated to material and equipment trials and tests. A choice made to satisfy an increasingly international customer base, in the name of technological innovation and product development – traditionally, two strategic pillars at Cofit.

Over the latest fifty years, thermoplastic screening process has benefited from considerable progress and ongoing technological innovation – a benefit largely owed to Cofit International.

Since the company was founded in 1967, at its headquarters in Cerro Maggiore (Milan), significant sector-specific products have been designed and manufactured, to such an extent that today Cofit is a synonym for “screen changer”: its specialization is acknowledged worldwide, to all corners of the earth, thanks to company widespread sales network.

Cofit corporate philosophy relies on significant investments in Research & Development and ongoing product range expansion, so as to meet any needs, pursue unrivalled quality and enhance control of increasingly automated and user-friendly processes. Cofit solutions offer no production outages and include a self-cleaning stage that prevents screens from being removed for cleaning. And keeping an eye on power consumption reduction, environment impact and cost minimization – aspects that are very important to our customer base, which spreads from compounding companies to film manufacturers, and recycling businesses. Our customers have to deal with increasingly polluted materials, which are “dirt”, hard to be treated and of post-consumer and post-industrial origin.

Our product range well adapts to any processing system needs as far as size, screening grade and automation level are concerned. Today, the market segment featuring the most significant growth is recycling – and Gorilla Belt, our top-of-the-line product, is our answer. And further novelties are coming up, along a development process that today is furtherly supported and eased by an in-house lab located at the company headquarter in Lombardy.

Strategies and trends

To have an up-to-date view on current strategies and market trends, we met Mr Alessandro Fabbri, Cofit General Manager.

“Our in-house lab lets us reach two goals”, Fabbri explained. “On the one hand, it makes us able to

meet our customer requirements: they often ask for tests on their materials and we could not support them in that before.

On the other hand, our lab allows us to test all our new products independently – a feature that has proven to be as important as meeting the customers needs, because we can furtherly expand our product range quickly, besides constantly enhance and upgrade our product portfolio. Our investments in the lab – involving a single screw extruder size 130 – is a clear sign of how much Cofit is increasingly focussing on Research & Development and technical innovation, the aim being to offer novelties, constantly. Before our lab was built, we had to ask for customer support to carry out tests, and it wasn’t that easy… Today, the whole process is speeded up”.

Positive outcomes

Mr Fabbri is proud to highlight excellent market reaction in year 2017, worldwide – clear signs of increase in business turnover, especially over the latest twelve months: “Sales have undoubtedly been boosted by Gorilla Belt – the automatic screenchanger dedicated to recycling that, ever since its launch a couple of years ago, has proved to be increasingly successful.

Cofit North America, headquartered in San Diego, California, has furtherly enhanced our success – our branch, which has been opened just over a year ago, has already become fully operational.

Besides a steady increase in sales volumes, ambitious projects are in sight at Cofit American branch: agreements with major sector players are being achieved”.

This article has been reproduced with permission from the magazine “Plast”, thanks to the author Paolo Spinelli.

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COFIT NORTH AMERICA provides pre-sales, startup and after sales support in USA, Canada and Mexico; a valuable assistance in selecting the automatic / continuous screen changer most suitable for your extrusion system.